Lucien's Luck
by Jordy Trent
Summary: This one's no amateur, no freelancer come to your room by chance. His name, in the language of High Rock, means luck. His first name means light. Ironic, isn't it? He has never walked in the light, and as for the other one...
1. The Shadow

**~ Lucien's Luck ~**

His name, in the language of High Rock, means _luck_. His first name means _light._ Ironic, isn't it? He has never walked in the light, and as for the other one: twenty one years ago, he completed a contract and thought it over and done with and went on to the next, but by chance a boy child lived to tell the tale and grew to manhood wrathful and cunning, and with a hunger for vengeance that increased with each passing year. How's that for luck?

He looks Imperial through and through - _looked_ Imperial, you correct yourself. What he looks like _now_ hardly bears thinking about.

But with a name like that, you muse, almost idly as the sun sinks low over Applewatch, there must have been a Breton ancestor somewhere in the male line.

As with so many other things, you will now never have the chance to ask him.

_The Shadow_

You never even thought of it as murder. That Wood Elf in Skingrad, the one with the darting, suspicious eyes- he was convinced _they_ were watching him, and he wanted you to help him stop them. At first you were humoring him, but humor quickly turned to alarm as you realised how far he was prepared to go.

Drawing your weapon had been a last resort. It was done in defense, after all, and no-one saw you. No witness, no guards, no bounty.

No, you never thought of it as murder. Someone did, though, because later that same night, you jerk out of a deep, dreamless sleep in some grubby Colovian inn, and _he_ is there: beautiful black-hearted Lucien, like a piece of the night made manifest, like a shadow in the shape of a man.

You're on the back foot from the very start, defenseless and unprepared (and this will set the pattern for the rest of your encounters; the initiative, the _advantage_, will always be his and not yours). Flat on your back for one thing, weapons across the room out of reach, and still muzzy with sleep. Oh, and naked. You thank the Nine that the inn, whatever else its shortcomings, at least sees fit to provide its customers with good, thick blankets.

Yanking them up around your bare shoulders, you gape at him with a mixture of fear, shock and outrage. Murderer? Thief? Rapist? He looks dangerous, and that's _got_ to be deliberate; no-one cloaks themselves from head to toe in midnight black unless they're trying to create an impression.

Murderer, then. But this one's no amateur, no freelancer come to your room by chance, and your fear leaps. _Dark Brotherhood_. You know, you could have learned a few things from Glarthir's paranoia after all. Should have kept a dagger under the pillow...

But then he speaks, and his voice is low and cultured and soothing, even if his words are not. He _smiles_ at you. He steps from the shadows into the circle of candlelight, and in its subtle glow his eyes are like rich brown jewels.

Most of what he says slips by in a daze. All you can do is sit there and stare at him, and he smiles again and makes some remark about having your rapt attention. Gradually, it dawns on you what you are being asked to do.

It's futile, really. You're already in thrall, under his dark beguiling spell. Already you suspect that you'll do it, or anything else he might ask - but you feel obliged to say it anyway: "I'm not a murderer!"

Lachance looks at you down that proud, hawklike nose. "No?" he says softly, speculatively. "The Night Mother seems to think otherwise."

And he gives you a weapon, a thing of beauty. His gaze remains fast in yours, and as your hand closes automatically over the carved hilt, his fingers brush yours in the barest of caresses. Perhaps his smile widens, or maybe it's just your imagination.

"I do hope we meet again soon," he murmurs. And that's that. He turns to leave, with a lithe grace that even his dark flowing robes cannot conceal.

You huddle deeper into your covers, caught between disappointment and relief. "What, you're not even going to stay and share the latest gossip with me?" you mutter with sullen sarcasm.

In the doorway, he turns his cowled head. "Dear sister," he says, sounding slightly offended. "I do not _spread_ rumours. I _create_ them."

And with that he is gone, back into shadow. He never stays, as you're going to learn.


	2. The Ritual

_The Ritual_

Summoned, you stand before him after too long a separation, but your joy quickly turns to horror.

You've accepted them as family these past six months because he told you they were - _family, with bonds forged in blood and death_ (and blood, as they say, is thicker than water) And now he tells you, naming them one by one, that they are your foes and must die. It's as though your reality has no absolute form, but is shaped entirely by his words, his commands.

In all the Brotherhood's years this rite has only been performed two times before. Even assassins think twice before slaughtering their own. Though he doesn't say so, something in the dark glitter of his eyes, the almost imperceptible curl of his mouth, lets you know that the last person to wield the purifying blade was Lucien himself.

As you leave, you weep quietly, but you know you'll do it.

Never mind that Gogron hails you with his usual raucous affection as you slide down the ladder. Never mind that Antoinetta, all wide blue eyes and flying blonde hair, smiles eagerly at you as she hurries past, intent on some personal mission. Never mind Vicente's low appreciative voice telling you that you are like a dark gift to him, or M'raaj-Dar's late overtures of friendship. It's just become irrelevant.

Because when you ask yourself which would be harder to bear - a silent Sanctuary strewn with the corpses of your brothers and sisters, or his anger and disappointment - there can be only one answer.

And so you draw your blade. Blood may be thicker than water, but it still spills.


	3. The Apprentice

_The Apprentice_

When you return to him, he sees their deaths in your eyes before you say a word. He is pleased, and his satisfaction is like salve to your wounds.

_Master, have I done well?_

_Yes, my child. Rest now._

If he grieves for them, as you do, he gives no sign of it. Instead, he tells you things, dark secrets about the Brotherhood that few are privileged to know. And he has a new position for you. It has a name: _Silencer_.

A fitting word, since sound won't travel across a Void. To serve him directly, to extinguish life and light in his name - it's more than you ever imagined, it's…

"It is an honor without equal," he tells you, and not for one second does it occur to you to disbelieve him. So you bow before him, so low that the ends of your braids brush the floor. When you straighten, he steps close, and for a brief moment you feel his lips against your forehead, cool and firm.

But it's a double-edged sword, and if you think being his protégé means you'll finally be allowed to stay at his side, you're about to be disillusioned. Your delight is equalled only by the depth of your dismay when he tells you in the next breath that he is sending you out, away from him, to stalk the shadows that border the everyday world. No more homecomings. From now on, you will not even speak unless he deems it necessary.

In a way, though, he'll always be with you. In the weeks to come you'll awaken many times to an immediate sense of his presence, as though he's just left, or is at the door. And each time you'll wonder whether it's because you dreamed of him again - or whether he really came to you, once more as you slept, like a caress from an unseen hand in the dark.

But for now, perhaps it's the bleak disappointment in your eyes that prompts his next, entirely unexpected words.

"There is one last thing. I have for you a very special gift..."

Outside the fort you shield your eyes with your hand, blinking in the sudden strong light, and then you see her.


	4. The Steed

_The Steed_

She is, just as he had said, _magnificent_. Not the tallest of horses, and less stocky than some. But she has presence. She looks like a master's sculpture in living ebony, every line proud and true.

As you come near she raises her head, nostrils flared and ears pricked, watching your approach with alert blood-red eyes.

_Red _eyes? That gives you pause. This horse is unlike any other, and you approach cautiously, expecting a nip or worse. But apparently she has been given her instructions just as you have, because she snuffs at you quite calmly, and there is nothing supernatural in the warm horse-breath, or the sleek velvet of her coat as you lay a hand on her neck. Given not as a reward but as a gift, a token of his trust and love, she is now the most precious thing you possess.

She stands perfectly still for you to mount, and when you touch your heels to her sides, she goes straight into a fluid walk, placing each hoof with clean, deliberate grace.

At the slightest urging, she moves easily into a fast canter. You could laugh for joy. The sun high in the sky, the open road before you, the deep rhythmic creak of saddle-leather, and Shadowmere's muscles working beneath you, her dark mane flying in the breeze of her own movement.

If she misses her master, she hides it better than you do. She bends her strong, supple frame to your every command. And let anyone, any creature, try to harm you, and she comes at the gallop like one of the Legion's finest war-stallions, teeth bared and ears laid flat against her skull.

You shouldn't be surprised. Of course Lucien's horse would be well trained, just like his Silencer.


	5. The Mage

_The Mage_

The fight is long and bitter, the hardest yet. Gone are the days when your targets were weak and unwary and a single well-placed arrow was all it took. This one senses your approach before you can so much as put hand to bowstring, and he turns to fight you for his life with all the ferocity of his Dunmer heritage.

He commands the destructive magicks as if they were tools fashioned for his hands alone. Bursts of enchanted fire leap from his fingertips, followed, without respite, by a barrage of crackling blue-white energy that strafes every nerve and sets your teeth juddering. You reel with the impact. But if there's one thing a caster dislikes, it's close combat, so you down bow and arrows and close with him. And in the end you prevail.

You move close to witness the last breath, as has become your habit. It fascinates you, this moment of ultimate transition. But you've never considered yourself a sadist. Call it _job satisfaction. _

Besides, this is an act of worship. He's about to meet Sithis. You almost envy him - almost, but not quite. An assassin with a death wish is a dangerous thing indeed. And you're more vulnerable than most. You're _alone_. No Sanctuary to seek refuge in, no brothers to trade stories with, no sisters to congratulate you when you return, bloodied and triumphant…no Speaker to warm you with words of praise. At least not in person; the sheaf of letters tucked inside your now-scorched clothing is the closest you'll get.

No, you're alone. The Brotherhood values secrecy even within its own ranks, and you could pass your dark kin on Cyrodiil's streets any day of the week and never know it. You have only swift, faithful Shadowmere to carry you across these lush heartlands to your next fated meeting.

Uvani gasps, and you stoop down to lay a wondering hand on his chest. A heartbeat. A pause. Another one, weaker. The mortal shell, as always, strains against the inevitable. Blood pulses from the fatal gash in his throat, once, twice, three times, and then no more. His skin, already ashen, gives no sign, but the crimson eyes dull with death's inimitable glaze.

Silence.

It's complete, beautiful, _perfect_ - the transformation from living mer to inanimate flesh. Somewhere in Cyrodiil tonight, someone will be sitting down before a roaring fire and toasting the Dark Elf's demise with a tumbler of brandy (or mead, just for the irony). And you wonder, with a vague, passing curiosity, just who that someone is. For a travelling merchant, he was a formidable opponent. Small wonder they didn't want to do it themselves.

No matter. You have schooled yourself not to dwell on such things.

A little way down the road, Shadowmere tosses her fine midnight head, one forehoof scraping restlessly at the ground. It's time to leave.

You've done your part, and Sithis will be pleased; you hope Lucien will be proud.


	6. The Lord

_The Lord_

It was raining in Bravil that day he came to you. This, in itself, is nothing remarkable; it's _always _raining down south, sometimes you thought the dull brown and brownish-yellow timbers of Bravil and Leyawiin never got the chance to dry out. But that day the rain came and never stopped, filling the river to its brim and soaking into the already sodden soil; a steady, unending veil of tears. When it rains like this, it's because the gods are weeping - or so your mother used to say.

Ungolim, at last, lies dead, and you straighten and exhale deeply.

"No!" It is a shout of rage and despair. And incredibly the voice is your mentor's, your own Speaker's - for once heedless of his surroundings and of the curious, alarmed stares of the townsfolk.

You stand stupefied in the pouring rain while his words lash you like a whip. His eyes blaze unutterable fury, and you are truly afraid of him.

"You have betrayed me...you have betrayed the Dark Brotherhood! _Why_!?" roars Lucien, and at the word _betrayed _you flinch as though he has struck you.

He steps closer, his voice dropping to a rough uncharacteristic snarl. "I am here to end your miserable life, to..."

You can only imagine how your face must look, shocked, blanching, your eyes huge with terror and pain. He sees it too, and stops - and then come the explanations, the awful realisations. Like the still-warm corpse beside you, sightless eyes upturned to the heavy skies…he was no adulterer, but the highest ranking member of your order. The one you should have made obeisance to. The one who, instead, you slaughtered like an animal.

Even now it would be all too easy for him to sacrifice you to save himself, to drag you before the remainder of the Black Hand and make you the scapegoat. But instead he says, softly and sadly, "You and I have been deceived, dear friend," -and at that, you understand that he considers you are both in this together.

You tell him that you are his to command - as if he didn't already know it. And he in turn tells you what you must do, and you stand mutely, bloodied weapon still in hand, and watch him leave.

The wind turns. Grey curtains of rain drift in front of you, obscuring the familiar, beloved shadow from your sight - for the last time, though you don't know it yet. If you did, if you could see what's coming, you'd forget decorum, hierarchy and the rest, you'd run after him and beg him not to go.

And the water keeps on falling from the heavens to slide down your cold face in glistening drops - Mara's tears, maybe, or Akatosh's himself. Not Sithis'. You doubt _he_ is given to weeping, although he should.


	7. The Serpent

_The Serpent_

You'll know he's the one the moment you look in his face - that wan face, those feverish eyes - but for now all you have is anonymous scribblings of blood, riddled with insane hatred and with Lucien's name.

The rain clouds have drawn aside to make way for a clear winter's night. The sea sighs softly against the jagged rocks, and Anvil's white lighthouse rises, fire-topped, against a backdrop of a million stars. One small group, prominent overhead, winds a sinuous trail against the black, beautiful and subtle and treacherous.

But you, you put aside subtlety and forgot stealth. You burst into the lighthouse keeper's home with your blade unsheathed, and you were desperate enough to use the Brotherhood's name openly to get what you wanted. It worked, and here you are, at the end of the trail of festering blood left in this traitor's wake.

The stench is appalling. Accomplished assassin though you are, the lavish mess in the cellar rooms sickens you. What you read makes you inhale sharply with shock, and the moist, reeking air leaps into your throat and nostrils, making you gag.

_Your_ name is in there, too. All this has been a very long time in the planning. He's lain coiled in wait, spreading his slow poison, testing the air with a forked tongue for the right time to strike.

_Lucien Lachance will die!! _The writing snakes backwards across the page, and your grip on the journal tightens until your knuckles are bone-white. Whoever this man is, his suffering has warped him beyond all reason, but you feel no pity, only rage and terror twisting together into a fierce protectiveness that makes your eyes burn in the dim light. _Lucien!_

* * *

As long as you live, you'll never forget this ride. The chill night air streaming in your face, drawing tears, the staccato pounding of hooves, the smell of hot, straining horse, camps and cave entrances flashing past you, indistinct. Boulders and fallen trees loom out of the darkness too quickly to avoid; a good thing your Shadowmere is that limber and can clear them with ease.

But Anvil to Bruma is a long way, and even she has limits. On the far side of the Imperial Reserve she begins to falter. Her sides are heaving, her eyes rolling, gobbets of foam falling from her mouth to spatter the ground, but for now you don't care. Whenever she shows signs of slowing, you strike her savagely across the flanks with the flat of your sword. Because there's still time - or so you think.

Much further north, Mathieu Bellamont breathes in the cold, clean mountain air and smiles for sheer joy as he and the other three slip noiselessly through the dark to stand before the farmhouse door. Arquen, in the lead, lays an elegant hand on the latch-

-but this is the part that you didn't get to see. From here on, we'll let Lucien tell his own story. After all, it's the last chance he'll get.


	8. The Warrior

_The Warrior_

Applewatch broods in wreathing mist. The farmhouse is very still, very silent now that its late owner lies in her grave, in death reunited with all of her adored children. Their untimely demises pleased the Dread Father greatly, of this Lucien is sure. All credit to his Silencer – his friend, his dark sister, his most trusted child.

He waits. Standing still in contemplation with his hands folded before him, only occasionally breaking stance to pace the rough stone floor as the hours wear on. He is tense, but not yet fearful. Not yet.

He chose her well - and ah, to have one of his own again, after all this time - and he has no doubt that she will unmask the real deceiver. And when she returns to him victorious, he will take her hand and raise it to his lips, tell her again of his trust in her, his pride, before they set out together to take the traitor's head. So he waits.

The door creaks open, swings inward. He turns eagerly, but his greeting to his Silencer dies on his lips as his eyes light on the four figures - four! - in the doorway, all black-robed and black-hooded like himself. On their faces, half-obscured by their drooping cowls, is nothing but cold, immutable condemnation.

"Lachance," says Arius cordially. He is already eyeing the other man's form - torso, neck, limbs - with anticipation. It's been _so_ long since he was in at a kill. There are certain longstanding, prescribed methods of dealing with traitors; they are neither quick, nor clean, and as far as Arius is concerned, so much the better.

Lucien stands at bay, his hand going to the hilt of his shortsword. "I am not the betrayer," he says harshly.

"That's exactly what the betrayer would say." This from Alor, and all four chuckle low, a dreadful unholy sound. And Lucien Lachance's blood thrills to a sensation he had forgotten long ago, or had never felt; jagged, freezing terror.

_Silencer...where are you?_

"This is madness!" he says urgently. "Do you not see? The traitor intercepted my dead drops, he-"

"Enough!" exclaims Arquen, drawing her dagger. The others follow suit. And the Black Hand, inexorable as the night itself, closes in.

"Justice at last, Lachance," says Bellamont softly from the back, his eyes alive with a mad, vengeful fire, and not one of those present catches his true meaning.

Lucien knows how to fight. He fights them until his blade is blunted and useless, and he is blinded with his own blood. And that's just the beginning.

* * *

The ground under Shadowmere's flying hooves gradually changes from green to brown, dust and rocks, and then at long last to white as you reach the Jerall Mountains. Her breath comes in long rattling gusts, harsh with fatigue.

The darkness and fog is all-enveloping, and if it weren't for the lit lamp, a beacon in the night, you might have missed the small farmhouse altogether. As it is, the mare almost stumbles over the crumbling dry stone wall. You tug her to a halt, barely waiting for her to stop before flinging yourself from her back. Spent, she falls to her knees, but you don't see it.

You open the door.

Lucien is there, just as he said he'd be…but he doesn't look like himself at all. He was only half right, you think. Bonds may be forged in blood, but they are also broken in it.


	9. The Thief

_The Thief_

Wrenched apart. Shattered.

Everything's bright-edged and _slow_, measured by the thud of your heart. You perceive it all with heightened vision: the close dark weave of their robes, the smallest flaws in that beam's woodgrain, the precise pattern of the flames swaying in the hearth …

…the minutest puncture wounds. The smallest splinters of exposed, white bone.

There's nothing recognisable, but you'd know him anywhere. He always had a _presence_, which the Black Hand's most savage ministrations can't dispel. And there are, you note with dreamy abstraction, lacerations on _their_ skins as well. Blood oozing from the Altmer's hairline, jagged tears in the Breton's sleeve. He had not made it easy for them.

Wait, the Breton. There's something about him. Outwardly he's no more sinister than the others, but the moment his eyes meet yours, you see it. In a split second's flash you see the sanguine dart of madness break the calm surface waters; you see the man you _know_ authored the journal, and this trail of carnage.

"You are like an unholy vision," is what he says aloud.

_And you're a _thief, some distant part of you wants to cry. _You _stole_ him from me_.

Of course, they're _all_ guilty of that. You won't be doing anything about it just yet, though.

The deep calm that has taken hold of you you won't recognise until much later for what it really is. But since profound shock is serenity's closest mimic, it carries you through the next half hour, allows you to speak civilly to them when you should be taking your blade and burying it in each of their throats, starting with Bellamont and not stopping until they are all as ripped and unrecognisable as _he_ is.

Your face displays nothing as you listen to Arquen, who assures you in that throaty, monstrously serene voice, that all is well. That the betrayer Lucien Lachance has been _dealt with._

And he really has, hasn't he. You drift towards the hanging corpse. "Lucien..." you say softly.

You want him to talk to you. He may not look like himself, but it's still _him_...and you want him to talk to you, this new and very different Lucien, tell you it's all right. But it's not, and now he, your Speaker, is silent, _silenced_, for good.

You become aware of a presence to your left, a voice. Banus Alor has taken your word for a query and is enthusing about his role in the slaughter. "...the four of us attacking him in unison...the flashing of steel, the spraying blood!"

You look at him incuriously. Blood. Lucien's lifeblood lavished across walls and floor, decorating their robes, pooling beneath his ruined corpse. You inhale deeply, and the full-bodied metallic tang rushes into your nostrils. It's heady, almost euphoric, like a drug. Your eyes are blank and dry, but if you wept now, your tears would fall and mingle with those red rivers, saline and sanguine, an estuary of grief and pain.

He can't speak, but if he could, he'd tell you that he had not disgraced himself - shouted, or pleaded for mercy - not even during the worst of it, the searing of spell-fire alternating with the bite of cold steel, Arquen's bubbling laughter somewhere close by all the while. He'd tell you that he spent the night holding grimly to the thought that you would come - only to pray, at the end, that you would stay away. Because in the final moments, Bellamont had come close, so close that only the two of them could hear his words:

_Your Silencer will share your fate_, he had whispered as he angled the blade and forced it deeper, parting flesh, touching bone.

"Almost poetic, isn't it," says Bellamont now, and fondly, and in your cool ephemeral detachment you have to agree. It's the perfect traitor's death, no pity and no dignity.

His eyes were an arresting deep brown. You've seen them alight with the pleasure and pride engendered by your own achievements. You've seen them icy and abstract as he ordered the deaths of the family. You've seen them black with rage. Now you get to see them _vacant_, rings of pale knife-chipped bone girdling raw nothingness.

Now was he alive, or dead when they did that? Do you really want to know?

* * *

Arquen is speaking again, something about the _Night Mother_ and _taking his place_. The notion is nothing short of obscene. Lucien's place will never be filled.

The insulating effect is beginning to wear off. You want to scream your lungs ragged, but to do that you'd have to fill them with air first, and you can't breathe. Your hand slips towards the hilt of your sword -

But you stop yourself. You feel his eyeless stare on your back.

His last command to you hangs heavy in the air around the smell of his blood: unmask the traitor, save the Brotherhood. And isn't it a measure of his influence over you that his commands still hold sway, even when he's like this, chained and torn and divest of almost everything human?

You bow your head in acquiescence. Arquen smiles approvingly, and you step outside, closing the door gently behind you.

Past the lit lamp, past an exhausted, dull-eyed horse, past those five graves in their sombre crescent of cold stone, all utterly inconsequential. A few more steps, and you fall to the ground and vomit until there's nothing left to bring up.

It's almost dawn.

When you raise yourself shakily to your knees, hands splayed on the cold soil for balance, a flash of light strikes your eyes: the sun's first rays over distant Lake Rumare and the Imperial City. The tall white-gold spire, just visible through the trees, becomes a dazzling pillar of light which gathers the beams and deflects them back outwards, a radiant offering to the divines.

"Glory to Akatosh," you hear yourself murmur; the words form themselves unconsciously on bile-coated lips, a half-remembered reverence of childhood.

Lucien? He would have clouted you round the head for saying something like that.


	10. The Lady

_The Lady _

The ground you sprawl upon is rock-hard, but you feel no discomfort, and if you tremble, it's not because of the frost. You stay there a long time, and the sun's slow arc in the sky brings it around so that shafts of golden light illuminate the tombstones - the ones you'd rather ignore - picking out every chiselled letter. Solemn and accusing and final, they stand for everything that went wrong.

(Lucien, of course, won't get a tombstone, or a tomb, not even an unmarked pit. They'll let him hang there until his raw, remaining flesh molders and falls away; they'll probably take the new recruits up there to look at him, a warning to any would-be traitors.)

Look at the central grave: the old lady. The memory of her weathered, bright-eyed face swims into your mind, confiding how much she misses her sons and daughters. She asked you to bring them gifts and instead you brought them death, a cold arrow, a poison-drenched blade. Well, it's a gift of a sort. At least they're _together_ now. That makes them better off than you and him.

_Lachance's fool Silencer will never question the dead drops_, Bellamont wrote - and you didn't. Not once.

An entire family wiped out, and why? Because he ordered it. And you did it without question, as you'd have done any other unconscionable thing he asked. And Bellamont knew this too; he _counted_ on it. See? Your _devotion_ is what brought you to this. It's the bitterest irony of all.

Back out east, they used to call you saviour, Nerevar reborn. You were never sure you believed that - but you played the role anyway; you saved their land, and they loved you for it. What would they say if they knew how far you've fallen?

It hardly matters. Still, for his sake alone you deserve punishment - but then so do a few other people. And now the sun is sinking, the gravestones are casting lengthening shadows like five fingers of an encroaching black hand, and you've got an appointment to keep, back in Bravil.

* * *

The crypt yawns open like the mouth of midnight, and one by one the Black Hand disappears inside. And having no other choice, you follow them. All the performers are in place; the stage is set for the final, bloody act.

The dark Lady is displeased at being woken from her slumber. They call her _mother_, yet how different she is from that other one, how little regard she has for her children.

There are many revelations on this blackest of nights: all of them come too late. The first is Lucien's innocence. The second follows immediately after, and from there things happen in a blur, unfolding almost too fast to follow. This ancient tomb doesn't really need any more corpses, but several are about to be added anyway.

As quick as Bellamont is, you're quicker. If he reaches Arius and Alor first, it's only because you don't trouble to intercept him.

When the bloodshed is over, it's time for the hardest reveal of all: the Night Mother, with her far-reaching gaze, had known everything and done nothing. She saw into the festering depths of Bellamont's heart, watched his plans come to fruition, watched him murder and deceive. Watched as Lucien paid the price.

She recounts all this with defiance and an utter lack of remorse. And you hear her with a sensation like falling, your hand opening and closing vaguely on the hilt of your sword.

Behind you, Bellamont spasms once more, gurgles and is still. Your blade is satisfied, dripping scarlet from where it opened up his throat from ear to ear, but as you listen to her you could almost _sympathise_ with him. So much for mother-love.

Then, as if nothing had happened in between times, it's back to Cheydinhal. Unlike damp, wretched Bravil, Arkay's city is beautiful, but its elegant black-and-white timbers conceal a similar dark secret. Arquen, now your humble servant, goes ahead of you.

As you stand irresolute at the lip of the well, it suddenly occurs to you that you haven't seen your horse since Applewatch. But there's no need to scour Cyrodiil. You know where she'll be.


	11. The Tower

_The Tower_

In its youth, the outpost's corridors rang daily with the sounds of rough voices, laughter, shouted orders, the clang of blades on shields; the sort of noise that only military men _en masse _can make. In middle age, after the legion had gone, it served as a supply depot. But that stage of its life was a brief one. Soon it was left empty except for occasional adventurers scouring the dark, silent halls for remnants of the Empire's wealth. And in time, even they stopped coming.

And now, in retirement, Fort Farragut rises from the hillside like an aged sentinel, still standing guard over the city below. From its crumbling battlements you can see down into Cheydinhal, see the glitter of sunlight on the Corbolo as it meanders through those green parklands at the start of its journey south. You can see the roof of the Sanctuary. It's easy to imagine him standing here, silent and watchful, observing his children's comings and goings.

It was a short walk up the hill, but it's left you exhausted all the same. You've dreaded coming back here, to the place he called home. And why _did_ he choose to live here in this dank underground ruin - why not a grand house like Uvani's, or even a humble one like Ungolim's? It's just one more thing you'll never get to ask. Like, _Lucien, where were you born, where did you grow up, who were your parents, your first lover, your first kill...?_

Shadowmere whinnies at your approach, but doesn't move. There's something in the stubborn plant of her hooves in the earth that suggests she won't be easily persuaded.

As you come close to her you notice the state of her hindquarters. They are crisscrossed with angry weals, some encrusted with dried blood.

For the first time, she jerks her head away as you reach for her reins. You'd think she was angry with you for what you put her through that night, but there's something more pressing on her mind. She neighs again, louder this time, throwing her head in that particularly wilful manner that horses have, as though serving notice that she would wait - and wait, and wait, however long it took, until he came back.

"He's not here," you say. "He's not-" and you can't continue.

Shadowmere shifts uneasily on her feet, unsettled by the animal sounds of your grief, but since there's no-one else here to comfort you, you bury your face in her coarse dark mane. And after a moment, she pushes her head against your shoulder, her sides expanding and collapsing in a heavy sigh.

"It's just you and me now," you tell her, several minutes later when you can speak again.

You sense her comprehension - and her disbelief. Her sleek black body shudders with the effort as she lifts her muzzle and calls again, plaintive and insistent, for someone who can't answer.

The sound resonates in the abandoned, decaying cylinder of stone.


	12. The Lover

_The Lover _

It's strange, the vividness with which the dead come to us - in visions, or dreams with the kind of knife-edged clarity that waking life can only imitate.

Lover? No, he never was - except, had you dared, in your imaginings. He never touched you like that. And maybe that's a _good_ thing, you think; maybe his touch would have been like poison, flooding your veins, because although poison is not always bitter, it is always deadly.

But you're deceiving yourself. By any impartial standard you barely knew him, and you never saw his face in the sunlight. All you have to look back on is a handful of meetings - by night, in dark places, or under impenetrable steel-gray skies. And yet the first time you looked at him, a complete stranger half-shrouded in shadow and fear, you felt it: that impossible flood of recognition that the poets, for lack of an adequate word, would probably call _love_.

You shed blood for him - what was that, if not love? You shed blood for him, and he - what would he say now, if you stood before him in your nightmares?

You know the answer to this; you've dreamed it every night since it happened. _Too late, Silencer_, he'd say, with that gaping red tongueless travesty of a mouth. _You came too late_. And what could you say in reply, except: _Too soon, Lucien. You left me too soon. _

But tonight he comes to you, once again and for the last time - and this time your dreamscape is different: it doesn't look like Applewatch, but like Bravil in a rainstorm. Your face is glistening with something that looks like rain but tastes like the sea, and he is whole again. And in dreams, in death, all the things you never had in waking life can be yours.

So you find your voice, you call him back. A second - nothing, then the black figure reappears. You do as you should have done the first time, and beg him to stay with you. He comes closer, his eyes searching yours. They are just as you remember them, not raw and empty but the deep, gold-tinted brown of warm honey.

Your face and your voice reveal everything. "My Silencer," he says softly, a curious lilt to the voice you know so well, and he reaches out long fingers to brush against your wet face. It goes right through you, and you shudder; so his touch _is _intoxicating, after all.

It's madness, this, under the circumstances - it would be madness at any time, but the pull is too strong. Beneath your awed hands, the powerful rhythm of his heart as it drives the lifeblood through his veins. His lips on yours, warm and so _alive_...

When you awaken, abruptly, it is to a lingering sense of his presence, as real as though he's only just drawn away from you. You can still feel the imprint of his body on yours, your bare flesh tingling in the wake of his hands, the resonance of his voice close in your ear. Oh Sithis, you can _taste_ him.

You breathe out, once. "Lucien!" you whisper. Surely he is close by, surely he'll answer-

The room is silent and still. In death, just as in life, he never stays.


	13. The Shadow reprise

_The Shadow (reprise)_

You could sleepwalk through the rest of your days - and who knows how long they might be, you have never met an _elderly_ assassin - but the rhythm of life continues, and there are duties to be carried out, contracts to be negotiated, blood to be spilled.

The Night Mother has spoken again, and all you had to do was listen, which is good because you can't imagine what you'd say to her. She's no mother of yours, not anymore, but to whom else would you go, to hear the whispers of death? The Void still hungers, the will of Sithis is unchanged.

Then again, this was never really about Sithis, was it? It's not that you aren't a believer, but ultimately, it wasn't to _him _that you sold your soul. It wasn't _his_ presence that pervaded your dreams, your nightmares - leaving, in its absence, a void of its own that claws at you, leeches your strength, your will.

It's Frostfall, and the air is bitter. The grass is browning and shrivelled, and the Corbolo is slowing, cooling like the blood in a dying man's veins. Another few days of this and the river will be iced over from Cheydinhal's east wall to its west.

Looking up, you see the familiar fiery patterns burning holes in the sky. Wise Mage, clever Thief, strong Warrior and the rest. You have no idea which one is yours, but it doesn't matter. _They_ don't control your destiny...

...your destiny...

_Silencer_, sighs Lucien, somewhere dark and very far away. _We weren't assassins for nothing, were we?_

Your fingers slide pensively over the ebony blade strapped to your hip.

You hope that your return to the Sanctuary will go unnoticed, because you want to hide yourself away, you need time to think. Someone ruins your plans, though.

"Listener!" Arquen cries, smiling broadly. "Your presence honors us."

She has not said a word about him.

So you tell her what the Night Mother told you, and she leaves to seek out the client. The rhythm of life continues, and so too does the rhythm of death.

Barefoot and unalert, you wander the cool dark vaults. The eager, bloodthirsty children that now populate these halls come clustering round you, falling over themselves to pay their respects to their legendary leader. If only they knew what a pitiful creature you really are, a loyal dog pining for a master who'll never return. Their presences barely register, but as you turn away they resume talking amongst themselves, and you hear the girl whisper, nervously. Lucien's name, and then: "Is it true that Arquen...feasted on his entrails?"

You stop short. Red clouds your vision, _sanguine_, a sudden mist of madness - or is it, finally, lucidity? Does it feel like madness only because it's so _alien_?

You turn back. "When Arquen gets back, tell her to meet me in my room," you instruct her, and walk away, not bothering to listen to her stammering acknowledgment. Though you never asked for or wanted it, this elevated new position has its advantages - like a Speaker's obedience.

You turn the ebony knife in your hands, over and over. It's no longer a _virgin blade_. It's tried and tested, and more powerful, now, thanks to the Unholy Matron, she who could have prevented all this and chose not to. And if you can't make _her_ pay - at least not directly, Bellamont already tried that – you can turn the tool she gifted you with to a purpose she never intended.

The doors to Ocheeva's former quarters are thick and strong, and even when they hear the screaming they'll never be able to break them down in time.

Have you become a Bellamont yourself, sitting here in the dark and plotting vengeance against your own? If you slay Arquen, won't that be justice?

No, it'll make you a _traitor_ (and if the word was good enough for Lucien...)

They'll come after you then, and string _you_ up, do to you what they did to him. And then, at last, you'll get your reunion, in that everlasting shadow where Lucien now kneels before Sithis' terrible throne. When you approach, maybe he'll rise in welcome, speak to you with love and pride. Or he might take an eternity to rebuke you for failing him.

Either way, you're going to share his fate. And the thought makes you delirious with joy. So you sit alone in the dark, smiling to yourself and fingering the blade he gave you as you wait for the sound of Arquen's approaching footsteps. It seems that you and he _were_ meant to stay together, after all.

* * *

**...the End!!**

**Oblivion is the greatest computer game I've ever played, and I loved the Dark Brotherhood questline in particular, but getting so attached to Lucien and then walking into that infamous scene in Applewatch felt like getting hit in the face with a concrete slab. I had to write about it to purge myself of the trauma. **

**I'd almost finished writing this when I had the idea of using the birthsigns as chapter titles. It was amazing how well they fitted the themes of the story, but I couldn't think of any way to use The Atronach short of complete and utter contrivance. So that one got left out. **

**Thank you VERY much if you left feedback...I'm really pleased that so many of you liked the story...and to those readers who've got this story on their favourites/alerts list and haven't commented, how about a little review for the very last chapter to make Jordy happy? :)**

**Jordy xx**


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